In association with:
The Computer & Writing Association, University of Aberdeen, the CTI
Textual Studies, University of Oxford, the CRILet, Center for Literary
Computing, University of Rome, Bollettino '900, Dept. of Italian,
University of Bologna.

"LITERATURE, PHILOLOGY AND COMPUTERS"
An international seminar
7-9 September 1998

The seminar, conducted in English, aims to bring together a heterogeneous
but significant group of scholars in order to promote lively and informal
discussion on the future of philology, writing and literary analysis in
the digital support era. The conference will be interdisciplinary and
contributions are welcome from the fields of literature, philology,
writing and composition, psychology, etc.

1. Themes of the seminar and keynote speakers
2. Call for papers
3. List of contributors (provisional)
4. Registration Form

1. THEMES

*Encoding of linear and non-linear document sources*: Theory and
practice. Text encoding has been the central problem of humanities
computing for years. However, today the question is not only how to
achieve a standard for representing texts, but also how to structure
(concept mapping) and encode different sources of information (images,
sounds, etc.). What happens to structured information once it has left
its paper medium and become electronic? What does this process imply
for transmission of information? In this session, apart from
theoretical papers, there will be discussions on present conventions
(such as SGML, HTML, etc.) and future developments.

*Computers and Philology*: digital realisation of critical editions
and the possibilities of the WWWeb. New definitions of the concept of
the editio critica or abandonment of the concept of authorship? The
epistemology of text and the problems of text transmission will be at
the heart of this session, which will evaluate current projects and
examine the prospects opened up by the Internet.

*Text analysis and virtual data-banks*: new definitions of textual
criticism in the light of literary computing. How information
technology modifies the concept of source and interpretation,
challenging traditional historical disciplines. Presentation of
projects and applications in progress.

*Hype or Hypertext?* Critical evaluation of the theoretical
underpinning of the North American school (George Landow, Michael
Joyce, Ted Nelson, etc.), and assessment of the place of hypertext
theory in the history of books and writing. Review of the more
promising products available on line, and investigation of the
educational possibilities of hypertext in the study of languages and
literature.

*IMPORTANT NOTICE*: due to time constraints, and to preserve the
creative dynamics of the seminar, the number of presentations will be
limited to 15.

*Contributions* should be 20 minutes in length and proposals in the
form of a 500 word abstract (preferably written in HTML) should be
submitted via e-mail by June 30th to: itadfp@srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk or
mc9809@mclink.it. All proposals will be reviewed, and authors of
accepted papers will be notified by July 15th. Abstracts of papers
will be published on the seminar web site.

Check the conference web site regularly for updated information on the
seminar programme, venue and timetable, or send enquiries by email to:
Anna.Middleton@ed.ac.uk or the e-mail addresses mentioned above
*Conference fees*: £30 per person (academic) / £15 (post-graduate).
This includes a buffet lunch on 8 September.

*Accommodation*: A limited number of single rooms are available at
Pollock Halls of Residence, University of Edinburgh, for 7, 8
September at £20.35 per night. Early booking advisable: contact Dr
Anna Middleton at Anna.Middleton@ed.ac.uk

3. CONTRIBUTORS (provisional)

Lou Burnard is a leading figure in the Computers and Humanities field,
and among the founders of the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), the most
important project for the development of guidelines for the
preparation and interchange of electronic texts. He is currently
Manager of the Humanities Computing Unit at Oxford University
Computing Services.

Giuseppe Gigliozzi, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Department of
Linguistic & Literary Sciences. Founding director of CRILet, a
research centre for literary computing at University of Rome. Dr
Giuseppe Gigliozzi's scholarship centres on narrativity, text analysis
and encoding, and literary theory. He has published a number of
book-length contributions in the field of computers and the
humanities.

Francisco Marcos Marin, full professor of Linguistics, Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid, Departamento de Lingüística General, has been
working in the field of Computers and the Humanities since 1971. He is
the editor of Admyter, a series of advanced Cd-Roms of digitalised
manuscripts and incunabula of medieval Spanish literature (1992, 1993,
1998).

Willard McCarty, Senior lecturer at the King's College Centre for
Computing in the Humanities (CCH), editor of Humanist, and
Vice-President of the Association for Computers and the Humanities is
among the pioneers of literary computing. Among his various digital
projects there is the Analytical Onomasticon, "a printed and
electronic reference work to all devices of language by which persons
are named in the Metamorphoses of Ovid."

Federico Pellizzi, University of Bologna, Dept. of Italian. General
editor of Bollettino '900, one of the main electronic journals dealing
with Italian contemporary culture and literature, which has editorial
input from across Europe. Federico Pellizzi has recently organised an
international computers and literature conference at the Universita' di
Bologna (November 1996).

Mario Ricciardi, University of Turin, full professor of Italian
Literature, Dept. of Communication Studies. Director of the programme
on Communication within the Arts Faculty of Turin University and
comissioning editor for the main imprints which publish academic books
on computing and literature (Bollati-Boringhieri, Franco Angeli, etc),
Mario Ricciardi is an influential theorist on computer literacy and
computer-assisted literary analysis.

Massimo Riva, Brown University, Dept. of Italian Studies, Director of
Graduate Studies of the Italian Studies Department and editor of the
Decameron Web works closely with the George Landow's Hypertext Group
at Brown University. He is also among the first organisers of a
Web-based Italian literature course.

David Robey, Department of Italian Studies, University of Reading.
Professor Robey is an expert on literary theory and has produced a
number of valuable tools for the electronic scanning of metrics in
Italian poetry. He was one of the founding figures of the Oxford Text
Archive.

Mirko Tavoni, University of Pisa, is associate professor of History of
Italian Language and national coordinator of the CIBIT Italian
universities consortium, the first on-line searchable archive of
modern and classical Italian literary texts that would be available on
the Internet by December 1997.

Antonio Zampolli, University of Pisa, full professor of Computational
Linguistics, director of the Instituto di Linguistica Computazionale,
CNR, Pisa. Antonio Zampolli has been working in the field of
Computational Linguistics since 1967 and is responsible for a number
of European projects related to Humanities and Computing.

4. REGISTRATION FORM

"Literature, Philology and Computers: An International Seminar"

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 7-9 SEPTEMBER 1998

I should like to attend the above seminar on September 7-9 1998
at the University of Edinburgh.

Name....................................................

Work address.........................................

Address for
Correspondence...................................................

Tel. No. (Work)

Tel No. (Home)

Registration £30/ Associated Institutions £20 / Student £15

..... I enclose a cheque/money order for £30

...... Associated Institutions (£20)

...... Student (£15)

(Please tick as appropriate)

Please send by August 30 1998 completed form and cheque/money order
made out to the Department of Italian, University of Edinburgh to:
Anna Middleton, Department of Italian, University of Edinburgh, DHT,
George Square EH8 9JX

In association with:
The Computer & Writing Association, University of Aberdeen, the CTI
Textual Studies, University of Oxford, the CRILet, Center for Literary
Computing, University of Rome, Bollettino '900, Dept. of Italian,
University of Bologna.

"LITERATURE, PHILOLOGY AND COMPUTERS"
An international seminar
7-9 September 1998

The seminar, conducted in English, aims to bring together a heterogeneous
but significant group of scholars in order to promote lively and informal
discussion on the future of philology, writing and literary analysis in
the digital support era. The conference will be interdisciplinary and
contributions are welcome from the fields of literature, philology,
writing and composition, psychology, etc.

1. Themes of the seminar and keynote speakers
2. Call for papers
3. List of contributors (provisional)
4. Registration Form

1. THEMES

*Encoding of linear and non-linear document sources*: Theory and
practice. Text encoding has been the central problem of humanities
computing for years. However, today the question is not only how to
achieve a standard for representing texts, but also how to structure
(concept mapping) and encode different sources of information (images,
sounds, etc.). What happens to structured information once it has left
its paper medium and become electronic? What does this process imply
for transmission of information? In this session, apart from
theoretical papers, there will be discussions on present conventions
(such as SGML, HTML, etc.) and future developments.

*Computers and Philology*: digital realisation of critical editions
and the possibilities of the WWWeb. New definitions of the concept of
the editio critica or abandonment of the concept of authorship? The
epistemology of text and the problems of text transmission will be at
the heart of this session, which will evaluate current projects and
examine the prospects opened up by the Internet.

*Text analysis and virtual data-banks*: new definitions of textual
criticism in the light of literary computing. How information
technology modifies the concept of source and interpretation,
challenging traditional historical disciplines. Presentation of
projects and applications in progress.

*Hype or Hypertext?* Critical evaluation of the theoretical
underpinning of the North American school (George Landow, Michael
Joyce, Ted Nelson, etc.), and assessment of the place of hypertext
theory in the history of books and writing. Review of the more
promising products available on line, and investigation of the
educational possibilities of hypertext in the study of languages and
literature.

*IMPORTANT NOTICE*: due to time constraints, and to preserve the
creative dynamics of the seminar, the number of presentations will be
limited to 15.

*Contributions* should be 20 minutes in length and proposals in the
form of a 500 word abstract (preferably written in HTML) should be
submitted via e-mail by June 30th to: itadfp@srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk or
mc9809@mclink.it. All proposals will be reviewed, and authors of
accepted papers will be notified by July 15th. Abstracts of papers
will be published on the seminar web site.

Check the conference web site regularly for updated information on the
seminar programme, venue and timetable, or send enquiries by email to:
Anna.Middleton@ed.ac.uk or the e-mail addresses mentioned above
*Conference fees*: £30 per person (academic) / £15 (post-graduate).
This includes a buffet lunch on 8 September.

*Accommodation*: A limited number of single rooms are available at
Pollock Halls of Residence, University of Edinburgh, for 7, 8
September at £20.35 per night. Early booking advisable: contact Dr
Anna Middleton at Anna.Middleton@ed.ac.uk

3. CONTRIBUTORS (provisional)

Lou Burnard is a leading figure in the Computers and Humanities field,
and among the founders of the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), the most
important project for the development of guidelines for the
preparation and interchange of electronic texts. He is currently
Manager of the Humanities Computing Unit at Oxford University
Computing Services.

Giuseppe Gigliozzi, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Department of
Linguistic & Literary Sciences. Founding director of CRILet, a
research centre for literary computing at University of Rome. Dr
Giuseppe Gigliozzi's scholarship centres on narrativity, text analysis
and encoding, and literary theory. He has published a number of
book-length contributions in the field of computers and the
humanities.

Francisco Marcos Marin, full professor of Linguistics, Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid, Departamento de Lingüística General, has been
working in the field of Computers and the Humanities since 1971. He is
the editor of Admyter, a series of advanced Cd-Roms of digitalised
manuscripts and incunabula of medieval Spanish literature (1992, 1993,
1998).

Willard McCarty, Senior lecturer at the King's College Centre for
Computing in the Humanities (CCH), editor of Humanist, and
Vice-President of the Association for Computers and the Humanities is
among the pioneers of literary computing. Among his various digital
projects there is the Analytical Onomasticon, "a printed and
electronic reference work to all devices of language by which persons
are named in the Metamorphoses of Ovid."

Federico Pellizzi, University of Bologna, Dept. of Italian. General
editor of Bollettino '900, one of the main electronic journals dealing
with Italian contemporary culture and literature, which has editorial
input from across Europe. Federico Pellizzi has recently organised an
international computers and literature conference at the Universita' di
Bologna (November 1996).

Mario Ricciardi, University of Turin, full professor of Italian
Literature, Dept. of Communication Studies. Director of the programme
on Communication within the Arts Faculty of Turin University and
comissioning editor for the main imprints which publish academic books
on computing and literature (Bollati-Boringhieri, Franco Angeli, etc),
Mario Ricciardi is an influential theorist on computer literacy and
computer-assisted literary analysis.

Massimo Riva, Brown University, Dept. of Italian Studies, Director of
Graduate Studies of the Italian Studies Department and editor of the
Decameron Web works closely with the George Landow's Hypertext Group
at Brown University. He is also among the first organisers of a
Web-based Italian literature course.

David Robey, Department of Italian Studies, University of Reading.
Professor Robey is an expert on literary theory and has produced a
number of valuable tools for the electronic scanning of metrics in
Italian poetry. He was one of the founding figures of the Oxford Text
Archive.

Mirko Tavoni, University of Pisa, is associate professor of History of
Italian Language and national coordinator of the CIBIT Italian
universities consortium, the first on-line searchable archive of
modern and classical Italian literary texts that would be available on
the Internet by December 1997.

Antonio Zampolli, University of Pisa, full professor of Computational
Linguistics, director of the Instituto di Linguistica Computazionale,
CNR, Pisa. Antonio Zampolli has been working in the field of
Computational Linguistics since 1967 and is responsible for a number
of European projects related to Humanities and Computing.

4. REGISTRATION FORM

"Literature, Philology and Computers: An International Seminar"

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 7-9 SEPTEMBER 1998

I should like to attend the above seminar on September 7-9 1998
at the University of Edinburgh.

Name....................................................

Work address.........................................

Address for
Correspondence...................................................

Tel. No. (Work)

Tel No. (Home)

Registration £30/ Associated Institutions £20 / Student £15

..... I enclose a cheque/money order for £30

...... Associated Institutions (£20)

...... Student (£15)

(Please tick as appropriate)

Please send by August 30 1998 completed form and cheque/money order
made out to the Department of Italian, University of Edinburgh to:
Anna Middleton, Department of Italian, University of Edinburgh, DHT,
George Square EH8 9JX

Please forward a copy of this Newsletter to colleagues who might be
interested in reading it. If you receive a forwarded copy, and would like
to be placed on the Bollettino's distribution list for future information,
please contact us: